Get The Fuck Outta Dodge’s third full length album ‘It’s Not Our Fault Your Boyfriend’s Stupid’ marked a step forward for the garage punk duo. Recorded with Arctic Monkeys engineer Alan Smyth and released in 2022, the material presented a warmer, fuller sound, making the Dodge boys sound a little more professional but without taking away too much of their rawness. Their 2024 EP ‘Just Keep Looking Forward’, somewhat ironically, doesn’t really maintain that progress or forward motion, but instead opts for going further back to their roots, with the best of the recordings sounding more like vintage Dodge circa 2020. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
‘Deathblow Peepshow’ opens the EP with a familiar barrage of fuzz bass and massive drums, dialling things back more in the direction of the band’s ‘Buzzkill’ LP. It sounds so much like a Dodge blast from the past that the opening riffs sound almost identical to ‘Karen’, but as the short number progresses, a couple of newer musical twists are taken. Not stylistically, obviously, but melodically – relatively speaking – and enough to ensure this eventually sounds like a track that’ll stand on its own merits. There’s a shift from the speed driven opening verse, loaded with trademark dual vocals, into a punchy chorus where the refrain of “let it go, let it go” creates an earworm that makes the Dodge lads sound a little bigger, and when returning to this a second time to deliver a climax, a thin layer of distortion fleshes everything out just enough to make the recording sound like a missing link between ‘Buzzkill’ and ‘…Stupid’. It’s certainly the kind of opening statement that’ll instantly reel the fans back in, before ‘Kitchen Anatomy’ shares something a little more interesting. Ren (drums/shouting) kicks everything off with a snare heavy riff which he keeps up with a repetitive groove throughout the first verse, whilst James (bass/shouting) adds a really dirty bottom end accompaniment that falls somewhere between the Smyth sessions and early Dodge blasts. That’s enough to secure another solid punky workout, but if anything works here its the decision to work an insanely repetitive vocal hook that takes the guts of their earlier ‘Still No News From Above’ and ‘Flag’ and gives them a vigorous shake. Ren’s voice has become a bit less harsh over the intervening years, but there’s still more than enough ugly, sharp edges within this performance to remind everyone that this lo-fi duo still possess a genuinely uncompromising attitude and sound.
In a sidestep from the usual full blown noise, the fat sounding ‘Rolands Raygun’ opts for more of a mid tempo, blues tinged groove. It’s hard not to compare this to “Dodge channelling Royal Blood”, but the bass sound is so fucking huge, that’s what springs to mind in an instant. It’s not that the Dodge boys don’t suit this, however; this opportunity to slow down brings a heavier sound and a world of swagger, but without killing the typical shouty refrains. It’s great to hear them feeling their way to something new-ish. It isn’t necessarily more sophisticated, though – and that’s surely the point. James and Ren are clearly capable of (and enjoying) making as much noise without hammering away at full throttle, and this might give the duo a little more longevity.
For the Dodge “purist”, ‘A Hypocrisy Shared Is A Hypocrisy Halved’ immediately hits upon another ‘Buzzkill’ era bass sound to power a repetitive and shouty hook, and ‘Sometimes You Should Know When To Give Up’ offers even more distortion, but manages to retain a little more of a groove than the duo’s past work. Scratch beneath the surface and it isn’t so different from a couple of old ‘King Kong’ era tracks – just played with more oomph and recording know-how. A little more interesting, ‘Office Politics’ opens with a classic punky riff that’s loaded with crashing drums and augmented by a huge riff that adds an ascending melody at the end of each bar, before diving face first into a massive shouty hook and groove laden riff that sounds as if its been layered with a broken electronic sound. Despite the bigger feel in places, it’s still very much a lo-fi affair that resembles classic Dodge noise.
Elsewhere, you’ll find ‘Dialled This One In’ – a typical barrage of bass distortion and sloganeering shouts leading to a repetitive hook, that even the Dodge boys seem to concede doesn’t push their abilities – and ‘Unoriginal Pioneers of Justice’, a companion to the earlier, chug-heavy ‘Original Pioneers of Justice’ which opts for pure garage punk thrills. With James’s bass taking on such a high tone in places it could pass for the noise made by a heavily distorted rhythm guitar, and with Ren smashing his kit into oblivion after recovering from two broken ankles following a gig injury, it captures the duo in a full on fury. Although the unrelenting riffs dominate throughout these ferocious sixty nine seconds, there are also some prime Dodge lyrics which adopt a typical rhyming and free-forming approach, more concerned with adding to an angry noise than sharing an actual message. This time out, we are warned about “spirit and mind bullshit”, being weightless, and possibly something to do with dogshit, although everything is so distorted and wonderfully angry, it’s impossible to pick out any of the finer points. As is often the case, this works out for the best.
‘Just Keep Looking Forward’ mightn’t be quite as broad in appeal as ‘…Stupid’, but James’s bass, in particular sounds superb throughout, and in ‘Deathblow Peepshow’ and ‘Rolands Raygun’, there are a couple of genuine bangers added to a quickly amassed catalogue. There’s sometimes a feeling of treading water here, but that seems to work in favour of the lo-fi sound, and for those who’ve followed Ren and James’s somewhat chaotic progress since the release of ‘Climbing Higher, Hitting Harder Than King Kong’ in 2019, these eight songs will still represent more than worthy Get The Fuck Outta Dodge fare.
December 2024